re: EE14 News

Quick update on EE 14: We've finished all the basic work up and have started our internal testing. What remains is to fix any new bugs that testing turns up. That makes this phase a little unpredictable, because we're never sure exactly how many issues we'll find during testing, but we're hoping to have something ready for Zog by the end of the week.

For those who want Zog (also known as the test server) accounts, please email PFO's support and ask for access.

re: EE14 News

We're finding more bugs than we'd hoped, but fortunately they've all been relatively easy fixes so far. Still, between that and my brief bout of flu mid-week, getting this to Zog is going to take a bit longer than predicted. Fingers crossed that we'll have something early next week.

re: EE14 News

The Adventurer's Cottages and Crafter's Studios will be $99.99 each and they'll be made available for purchase when we deploy EE 14 to the live servers. We've also dropped the price on the Smallholding to $99.99 (down from $200) and on the Base Camp to $24.99 (down from $50), and they're available for purchase at those new prices right now.

In addition, the prices for Class Packs and New Player Packs have been dropped to $9.99 each. That's $5.01 down from the previous $15 price for New Player Packs, and an amazing $0.01 down from the previous $10 price for Class Packs!

re: EE14 News

These are the Preliminary Release Notes for Early Enrollment v14. We deployed a Final Candidate build of EE 14 to the Test Server on Tuesday, November 7. We plan to deploy that build to Live during Daily Maintenance on Thursday, November 9, assuming that it performs well during testing.

What Is In This Release

This release adds ammunition use, line-of-sight restrictions, two new categories of premium player housing, and a new escalation to the game. Many smaller bug fixes and tweaks have also been made to improve the overall game experience.

Ammunition use mostly affects ranged combat, requiring the expense of crafted ammunition in order for attacks to be at their most effective (with the greatest effectiveness coming from the highest quality ammunition), but some melee-range attacks also require ammunition. Salvaged ammunition looted from fallen enemies will provide a cheap source of moderately effective ammunition, and characters can always fall back on makeshift ammunition, though that will do the least damage and requires a brief delay between attacks to create the ammunition.

Line-of-sight restrictions also mostly affect ranged attacks, primarily because of the increasing likelihood of obstacles between attacker and target as distance increases. However, all attacks, including those at melee range, require a clear line-of-sight between attacker and target.

Because ammunition use and line-of-sight restrictions have such large effects on game balance, particularly for ranged characters, the attack feats went through a major rebalancing pass. As part of this, the general Stationary restriction added to most ranged attacks (effectively rooting the character after an attack for a second or two) has in most cases been switched to just slowing the character for 1-2 seconds. As we see the effects of these balance changes in-game, we’ll keep a close eye on the results and make further balance changes as needed.

The new escalation, Over the Crown, brings ninjas of the Ruby Crypt clan, as well as samurai and wizards of the Shojinawa family employing them, all the way across the world from Tian Xia to the Echo Woods. This escalation is meant for experienced characters, and is both tougher and more rewarding than Gathering of Legends.

The new premium player housing options, Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios, give characters a personal home in their settlements. Each type of housing comes in multiple variants, with Adventurer’s Cottages available for every fighting or gathering role and Crafter’s Studios available for every crafting or refining role. They all offer useful advantages for their specific skills (personal trainers, adventuring buffs, shops to sell crafted items). They also cost 1 silver coin per week for upkeep and will be torn down if upkeep isn’t paid, though the deed will return to the owner to be placed again later. As part of this pass on player housing, Smallholdings have had their names changed to Freeholds, and they also now act as a shrine for the owner and any party members if they die within 1 hex of the shrine (only used if it’s nearer than any other shrine). Freeholds also now require 1 silver coin per week for upkeep, so inactive Freeholds will start getting torn down as they stop having their upkeep paid.

Full Release Notes

Ammunition:

With an ammo-using weapon equipped, an appropriate ammo container of the same tier or lower can be equipped in the matching offhand weapon slot. Higher tiers and upgrades of ammo containers offer more storage and more slots for different types of ammo.

Equipped ammo containers can be stocked with appropriate ammo of the same tier or lower. Right-clicking on the ammo container will open the Ammunition Window, where ammo can be dragged to specific slots and can also be re-ordered as needed. As a shortcut, ammunition can simply be dragged onto the ammo container and will get automatically slotted where possible.

If ammunition is loaded, ammo-using attacks use one piece of ammo and apply the ammo’s Base Damage and Effect Power bonuses to the attack. Higher tiers and upgrades of ammo offer higher Base Damage and Effect Power bonuses.

When the last piece of loaded ammunition is used up, a brief reload animation blocks further attacks while some of the ammunition stored on the container is loaded.

When an ammo-using attack is made while no actual ammunition is loaded, the attacker is considered to be using makeshift ammo. After the attack, a brief animation will block further attacks while the attacker cobbles together another piece of makeshift ammunition.

Ammunition is automatically reloaded and restocked after combat from Inventory for all previously stocked ammo types.

Mobs drop salvaged ammunition, which isn’t as good as crafted ammunition but can stretch ammunition supplies while still doing acceptable amounts of damage. Salvaged ammunition is automatically stocked after combat from Inventory if there’s room and an empty slot in an equipped ammo container.

On death, 5% of the ammo stored in a container is destroyed.

The amount of loaded ammo is shown on the Action Bar, with more details available in a tooltip.

Line-of-Sight:

Attacks are grayed out when line-of-sight to the target is blocked. Triggering a blocked attack will queue that attack so that it happens as soon as line-of-sight is unblocked.

All attacks, including melee-ranged attacks, check line-of-sight.

Escalations:

The new Over the Crown escalation brings ninjas and samurai to the Echo Woods.

Broken Men and Elemental Rift events give out extra loot like other events.

The Elite Duergar escalation naturally loses strength as fast as other similar escalations.

Multiple typos and other small errors were edited in various escalations and events.

Player Housing:

Smallholdings have been renamed as Freeholds, and now offer a personal shrine for their owners and members of their party. If an eligible character dies within 1 hex of the Freehold, and the Freehold is closer than any other shrines the character can use, then the character will respawn at the Freehold.

Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios are available as premium items in the Store. When redeemed in-game, purchasers get to choose exactly which kind of cottage or studio they’d like. Adventurer’s Cottages are available for every fighting role or gathering skill, and Crafter’s Studios are available for every refining or crafting skill.

Characters can place Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios in their settlement. Each character can place up to one Adventurer’s Cottage or Crafter’s Studio, and up to one Freehold or Base Camp.

If torn down, there is a one-week cooldown before Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios can be placed again.

Multiple features at Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios are available at each building’s front door. Right-click on the door to bring up a list of choices.

Crafter’s Studio owners can sell items crafted with their chosen crafting skill at the studio. Other players can access the owner’s shop by right-clicking on the studio door. Items for sale at the shop only include those being sold locally by the owner. If there is also an Auction House in the settlement, those items will be visible for sale there as well.

Crafter’s Studio owners can refine or craft items using their chosen skill. The studio’s facility rating is 50 higher than what would otherwise be available in the settlement (currently that translates to 50 higher than the overall facility rating offered by the current Settlement Level).

Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios have personal Mentors who offer training to the building’s owner relevant to their chosen skill. Training is offered 4 levels higher (maximum 20) than what would otherwise be available in that settlement (currently that translates to 4 levels higher than the current Settlement Level).

Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios offer personal vault access to their owner and party vault access to members of their owner’s party.

Adventurer’s Cottages offer hour-long stat buffs based on the owner’s chosen skill to owners and members of their party. Each cottage offers 12 buffs per day.

Adventurer’s Cottages offer power regeneration to owners and members of their party standing nearby. Power regenerates at 18 points per round at a cottage.

Freeholds, Adventurer’s Cottages and Crafter’s Studios all require 1 silver coin worth of Abadar credit in upkeep each week. The first week is paid automatically when the building is placed, while subsequent weeks must be paid manually at the building. Existing Freeholds will be given one free week of upkeep. Up to six weeks of upkeep can be paid in advance, and excess complete weeks of upkeep will be refunded to the owner if the building is torn down manually. If the upkeep isn’t paid, the building will be torn down automatically and the deed returned to the owner.

Combat:

Buffs remain on characters when switching hexes.

Attacks are grayed out against invulnerable enemies. Triggered attacks will be queued up so that they happen as soon as the target becomes vulnerable.

Using Beneficials (such as healing) on an unaffiliated target during a PvP window won’t result in reputation hits unless the target is involved in an active feud relevant to that hex.

Party members don’t take reputation hits for accessing the harvested resources when the owner isn’t around, or for accessing the harvested resources after a Harvesting Site finishes up.

Friendly guards can’t be hurt by defending characters during PvP windows, or by settlement members or allies unless they’re feuding.

Attacks by very low-level enemies against very high-level targets can no longer result in negative damage for extreme misses.

AI:

When attacking a Harvesting Site or Holding, mobs will immediately attack characters near their target as well as where they spawned. This should make it much less common for attackers to turn invulnerable while first running to the target.

Some feats with redundant effects were boosted to account for that redundancy.

For conditionals, the improved version of a buff will count as the lesser one. As an example, Empowered will count when a condition requires either Empowered or Favored, though Favored will not count when Empowered is required.

Replaced Stationary with Slow 50% for most ranged attacks.

Chill Touch as only a 50% chance of causing Drained.

Running Shot doesn’t slow the attacker.

Mastery Feats are now based on both Intelligence and Personality, not just Intelligence.

Beneficial feats were scaled back a bit to account for bypassing Effect Protection.

There was a general rebalancing pass on all attacks, including changes to the way ranged vs. melee attacks were balanced, a boost for attacks that are easier to interrupt, and other small changes to the values applied to various settings for each attack.

Items:

Crafted consumables were made more effective to take into account their gathering/crafting/refining costs. For Beneficial consumables, this was somewhat balanced out by the overall drop given to Beneficials to balance against their bypassing of Effect Protection, but this still boosted them in comparison to other Beneficials.

Spellcrafter recipes can now be crafted into Spellcrafter Codices.

Codex recipes won’t accept Azoth.

T1 ammunition raw materials are more plentiful than before.

Minor editing of some premium item descriptions.

Quests:

The Broken Lieutenants, Moloch Knights, Ustalavs and Lurinda Orerunner stages of the Finding Your Path quest point at the correct hexes.

Text for the skeletal wizards phase of the Finding Your Path quest states the correct number of kills required.

Text for the Role and Crafting Tutorial stages of the Finding Your Path quest correctly state whether to follow up with Harndon or Nahan.

Tutorials give out 50 pieces of ammunition instead of 30 and explain how to equip ammunition.

Tutorial descriptions were edited for grammar and consistency.

Objectives for various Finding Your Path stages were shortened to fit better in the Objectives Window.

Multiple typos and other small errors were edited in the Finding Your Path quest.

Training:

Fighter College Trainer no longer trains Power.

Tutorial Trainers renamed to Tutors.

Trainer at Library Holding renamed to Library Holding Trainer.

Fixed a typo in the training surcharge message.

Mules:

Settlements can control access to muleteers through the Settlement Access controls.

Unclaimed mules last 30 minutes instead of 15.

Mule husks last 60 minutes instead of 30.

Mules are now considered Friendly based on their owner, and therefore can’t be attacked or damaged by anyone who can’t attack or damage the owner.

Mules can be released using the chat command /ReleaseMule.

Town Criers:

Town criers try to get player’s attention much less often.

Increased size of the text field for editing Town Crier messages.

UI:

Potential Harvesting Sites are removed from the map after 1 hour, and placed Harvesting Sites are removed from the map after 4 hours.

The map tooltip for buildings shows the state of the building for any state other than Normal. This will make it easier to tell that a building has been destroyed.

The Inventory window will scroll back to the top after Deposit All.

Tooltips for attacks suffering an Arcane Spell Penalty more accurately reflect that penalty, and also show the specific effect of that penalty on the attack roll.

The tooltip for equipped armor is clearer that the list of matching feats only includes those currently trained.

Buildings show their correct current/max upgrade values immediately after construction.

The Item Redemption window won't be visible on the Character Creation screen, since premium items can't currently be brought into the game with a new character.

Hex -12,18 shows a Monster Hex icon.

The Objective Window can display three lines of text for the objective.

The Housing Management Window automatically closes after tearing down a building.

The list of choices when opening up a premium pack is sorted alphabetically and scrolls properly.

The list of premium items to redeem on the Character Selection screen scrolls properly.

re: EE14 News

We've discovered that ammo containers created prior to EE 14 were treated as not needing to track durability (since they couldn't be equipped), so they were technically created with zero durability and will disappear after a single death. Newly crafted containers will be fine.

We'll figure out a way to repair all of those containers, but meanwhile, anyone wanting to trade some zero-durability containers for 20-durability copies, send email to customer.support@goblinworks.com and we'll arrange a time to do so.